Sound Lounge in the Mix with iWeapons/i

New York City (October 25, 2006)--Sound Lounge has completed audio post work on Weapons, a new independent feature from director Adam Bhala Lough. Sound Lounge's Tony Volante prepared the final mix in the studio's 5.1 HD mixing theater on a Digidesign ICON integrated mixing console.

New York City (October 25, 2006)--Sound Lounge has completed audio post work on Weapons, a new independent feature from director Adam Bhala Lough. Sound Lounge's Tony Volante prepared the final mix in the studio's 5.1 HD mixing theater on a Digidesign ICON integrated mixing console.

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New York City (October 25, 2006)--Sound Lounge has completed audio post work on Weapons, a new independent feature from director Adam Bhala Lough. Sound Lounge's Tony Volante prepared the final mix in the studio's 5.1 HD mixing theater on a Digidesign ICON integrated mixing console.

The film tracks a series of brutal, seemingly random killings carried out by teenage boys in a working class suburb. In addition to its stark, unsentimental portrait of youth-related violence, Weapons is characterized by a series of stylistic shifts that occur at several points in the film and are reflected both visually and through its soundtrack.

At the conclusion of the opening scene, depicting a murder, the film makes an abrupt change, assuming the look and sound of a documentary. "The opening scene has a huge sound design, but then, just like that, it's low-fi, very grungy, handheld," recalled Volante. "The sound is like that too. It's very focused. Everything is up front, in your face, raw."

Later, the film shifts to the point of view of a character operating a digital video camera. This view persists for much of the middle portion of the film, with the sound and picture taking on the feel of a home video. "We go completely mono for that part of the film," Volante said. "Everything sounds like it was recorded onto this crappy DV camera."

The film eventually returns to the documentary look and in its final scene revisits the cinematic feel of the opening. "The look is again Hollywood style. There are more cover shots," Volante noted. "We opened up the sound, put a lot more things in the surrounds."

Slow motion scenes depicting acts of violence came in for a specialized sound treatment. "Those scenes are rendered in super slo-mo with huge surrounds," Volante said. "The sound for this film, with all its different elements, is very interesting. It goes from this big Hollywood sound down to the low-fi grungy thing and then comes back full circle."